Frohe Weihnachten!

Thanks to the wonderful German holidays and vacation time, Noah and I have been off since December 20^th for Christmas.  But while we live in Germany, we still use the weekend after Thanksgiving as our green light to begin decorating the house (and perhaps a dog too).  This means we are rather rebellious as it is tradition in Germany to wait until Christmas Eve to decorate the tree.  Good thing we aren’t German! 

Of course we managed to visit a few Christmas markets in the last few weeks and drink our fill of Glühwein.  My personal favorite is the Apfel Zimt (apple cinnamon) white Glühwein that you can find in the Residence Christkindlmarkt.  This year, it got even more expensive for us to visit the Residence Christkindlmarkt due to the fact that on Saturday when we went (for the second time), there were search and rescue dogs hanging out in Odeonsplatz to raise awareness/money for their cause.  And as I had to pass the dogs twice, and I wanted to pet more than just one, I ended up donating 10 EUR (basically all of the change Noah and I had). 

We made it out to Tollwood on Monday – though this year we were sure to check the opening hours.  Last year, we accidently went 2 hours before it opened, and we had the entire family in tow.  Oops!  We enjoyed some international cuisine in the food tent and found a few new ornaments to add to our collection.  And what would a trip to Tollwood be without buying some sort of winter accessory (this time a new pair of gloves for Noah)? 

Inside the food tent

For Christmas Eve, Noah made delicious green chili enchiladas with homemade white corn tortillas (and I usually do not like corn tortillas).  Sadly they went into my belly too quickly for me to take a photo of them for the blog. 

On Christmas, we started the day off the traditional Steffens way by making my Danish great-great-grandma’s ebelskiver recipe. 

I then forced the family to do a massive holiday photo shoot by the tree, and by the end of it Rita wouldn’t come near me, Sadie was demanding treats, and Noah disappeared into the kitchen. 

I started off with 'couples' photos.  Rita flung that hat across the room soon after the photo was taken.

I switched it up and gave Rita reindeer antlers instead. 

She quickly ran away and refused to come back.

At this point all I had left was Sadie, because she will do anything for treats.

For dinner we invited Aunt Ellen, Uncle Rüdiger, and our Russian friend Max (since Christmas in Russia is in January, so he didn’t go home for December 25^th).  We served up a bunch of traditional American dishes, including a delicious dry brine turkey (seriously – two years in a row it has been AMAZING, here is alink to the recipe), homemade yeast rolls, and an apple pie (my Christmas present from Noah).  There were other dishes, but I listed the most important ones.  We were also given an Ikea star of Bethlehem (or at least it seemed that big) as Ellen and Rüdiger’s neighbor decided she didn’t want it after she got it home.  See below. 

As you can imagine, Rita wasn't going to have any part of this.

After Ellen and Rüdiger left for the night, Max stayed so we could watch Rocky IV.  Because what else do you watch on Christmas night when there are Americans and Russians together?  Spoiler alert – America/Rocky beats Russia/Ivan (it is an American movie after all).  What I found interesting was that the scenes of the cold Russian winter where Rocky trains were actually filmed in the Grand Teton National Park, where my brother lives.  So basically I have a Russian brother.

The day after Christmas, which is also a holiday too), we awoke to snow!  While not technically a white Christmas, it was only a few hours too late to qualify. 

I was too lazy to get out of bed to take a photo.

For dinner Noah and I went over to Ellen and Rüdiger’s for fondue and cake.  I also spent 15 minutes in Rüdiger’s massage chair, and have decided I want one.  Since I don’t have a photo of me in the chair, I’ll put a photo of it snowing from Friday night. 

Now our lives consist of eating leftovers, doing puzzles, and taking the dogs out so they can make yellow snow, and I am more than fine with that.  Though I wouldn’t mind if there was a way to have pretty white snow AND 70 degree weather… but you can’t have it all. 

I miss the winters in Arizona.

Merry Christmas Y’all!